Newsstand: July 5, 2010

In today’s Newsstand, Pride queens and Queen Elizabeth II in Toronto, Mammoliti not for mayor, and two major fires in the city.

Rejoice, Toronto, for you are healed! Surely nothing soothes G20-related wounds like a “group hug for a million people” à la Pride. Police Chief Bill Blair avoided the parade, however, after being booed and flipped off at a Pride/police cocktail party last Tuesday. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, the group whose (temporary) banishment from this year’s parade sparked widespread protests, was present and marched.
And so did Brian Burke. The Leafs’ GM joined this year’s parade, keeping a promise to his late son, Brendan. It’s really not the kind of story you can sum up in a paragraph, so just do yourself a favor and read the National Post‘s beautiful piece on it.
You may not have noticed, but the queen toured Toronto yesterday, and while her schedule mostly stuck to the usual church-going and racetrack-gambling stuff, Elizabeth II was surprised when an eighty-seven-year-old woman “broke free of the waiting throng outside a church service and ambled right up” to the say hi and give the Queen a commemorative tea towel. As you’d expect, the Toronto woman was immediately hauled off by screaming riot police, subjected to an unwarranted strip-searches, detained in unsafe conditions without sufficient food or water for thirty-six hours, and then released without charge greeted by the monarch, who smiled and chatted amicably. What a crazy idea! For those of you keeping score at home, that’s -900 for democracy, but +2 for nice old ladies.
The dream is all but over for Giorgio Mammoliti (mayoral candidate, and councillor for Ward 7, York West). Mammoliti, who hates kids, loves casinos, and wanted to abolish property taxes for seniors but establish a Toronto red light district (perhaps on the advice of his contacts within the industry), is almost certainly announcing today that he is dropping out of the race for mayor in the hopes of keeping his old council seat. Virtually all of Mammoliti’s supporters are expected to go to Crazy Rival Rob Ford (Ward 2, Etobicoke North, and yes, that’s his official title). Ford, shown sleeping with his eyes open in the Star‘s photo, famously called Mammoliti a “Gino boy,” grievously insulting the long-serving councillor’s tight-pantsed heritage and frosted-tipped culture.
Musa, the popular restaurant that Martiniboys.com called “contemporary without being trendy,” was largely destroyed in a fire yesterday. Although staff and customers were in the building when the blaze began, no one was injured by the fire, which appears to have started on the roof or a nearby balcony. Photos of the building speak for themselves, showing a caved-in roof and blown-out windows. The fire spread to three adjacent houses before being extinguished. The Globe is reporting that firefighters say Musa may need to be structurally reinforced or demolished.
And the death of a twenty-three-year-old Ryerson student in a separate fire in the Annex last Friday is being treated as a homicide by police. The woman’s twenty-seven-year-old boyfriend, who was also caught in the fire, is in an induced coma.